Bitcoin China to cease digital assets trading

The Chinese central bank has not responded to questions about the currency's future there. However, some rumors about cryptocurrencies themselves being banned arose.

Two business newspapers reported Thursday regulators in Shanghai, the country's financial centre, gave verbal instructions to Chinese bitcoin exchanges to close. The post on their website today confirms the October deadline.

Beijing-based Huobi, one of the country's top-three Bitcoin trading platforms, said it hadn't received any orders about stopping trading but will "obey government laws and try its best to protect clients' assets".

He likened it to "tulip bulbs", a notorious market bubble of the 17th century and said that if found any of his employees trading it he would "fire them in a second". The exchange revealed that the suspension was "in response to relevant management measures".

Bitcoin is a digital currency i.e.it is a type of currency that is non-physical, of which no banknotes and coins exist, and which has no central regulatory body.

The information slowly coming from China has confirmed that trading taking place for Bitcoin-to-fiat platform will no longer be legal.

It's unclear whether China is effectively banning cryptocurrencies or if it wants to use a licensing system to gain control of the system.

Yesterday Litecoin creator Charlie Leetweeted that the leading Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges OKCoin and Huobi are meeting with regulators on Friday, despite the exchanges themselves claimed that they had not been contacted by authorities.

BTCC also made it clear that the decision for the shut-down was based upon the government's latest statement made on the 4th, which was targeting ICOs.

The cryptocurrency has started Friday on the backfoot too. Although that same exchange also encouraged customers to withdraw their funds "as quickly as possible". However, the only businesses affected are those relating to Btcchina; other Btcc businesses are unaffected as "Btcc is a separate company from Btcchina", the company noted, adding that "Btcc Pool, Btcc USD Exchange, Btcc Dax, Btcc Mobi, & Btcc Mint are not affected by this change". Markets like Japan, Korea and the us have emerged to account for the lion's share of global trading volumes, so the impact of this China ban is not as severe as it initially may seem. They also exercise significant power over changes to the Bitcoin protocol. Between June and mid-July, bitcoin prices fell 33%, largely due to fears surrounding the eventual upgrade of bitcoin's software code and branching out of the Bitcoin Cash.